The 33rd annual meeting of the American Aging Association (AGE) represents a conference at which scientists recognized as outstanding in the field of the biology of aging will present their most recent work, alongside of podium and poster presentations by junior faculty and students. This provides a wonderful learning opportunity for younger scientists and an opportunity for all attendees to exchange information and establish contacts that may result in subsequent collaborations, Awards given to the 2 best post-doctoral trainee presentations and the 2 best graduate student presentations (by podium or poster), are designed to encourage the future generation of biology of aging scientists. This request asks for travel funding for a portion of the invited senior presenters and, also, for a number of minority, handicapped and junior attendees. The P.I. has chosen an outstanding committee of researchers in the field to aid him in the organization of the meeting and selection of speakers. These individuals are: Dr. Paula Bickford, Univ. of South Florida and a past president of AGE; Dr. Tom Johnson, Univ. of Colorado; Dr. Donald Ingrain, NIH; Dr. Judith Campisi, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Dr. Steve Austad, University of Utah. The subject matter for the 8 titled sessions (4 speakers in each) is listed in the body of the grant proposal. They are directed toward species comparisons, and cell cycle and oxidative changes to DNA of nucleus and mitochondria, as all of these relate to gene and hormonal effectors. There are, in addition, 2 short talk sessions with 5 speakers each who will be chosen from competitive submissions by junior faculty, trainees and graduate students. [unreadable] [unreadable] The 2004 annual meeting will be held in Tampa, Florida on June 4-7. Dr. Bickford has investigated hotel accommodations there and has found that both the Radisson and the Hilton offer excellent accommodations for the meeting. She is negotiating with both. [unreadable] [unreadable]